"Hey, look, look! That guy is drop-dead handsome!" Girl said.
"He sure is! But what do you suppose is up with him?" Girl said. "I wonder if he doesn't know his way around."
"Something about him makes me think he frequents the clubs. Let's go call out to him Who knows, maybe he'll have some fun with us." Girl said.
Hatsuharu got on a bike and rode off.
Xxx
Winter break is now over, and third term has started.
"Don't think you're going to be able to keep that arrogant face forever! Someday, I'm going to make that mouth of yours say "I'm sorry!"" Kyo said.
"I'm sorry." Yuki said.
"No! Why you, aren't you embarrassed to act like that!?" Kyo said.
"It's more embarrassing for you to be shouting out in front of the store." Yuki said.
"Fine then, you girly-boy! Let's take it outside!" Kyo said.
"We already are outside, right, you stupid cat?" Yuki said.
"Sorry to keep you waiting." Kuri said.
"Hey there, Hikawa-san. We appreciate your efforts." Yuki said.
"U- um..." Kuri said.
And so, these two are getting along as poorly as usual.
"Why should I have to go out shoulder-to-shoulder with you in the first place!?" Kyo said.
As it happens, the wish I made this year at New Years'...
"So don't come." Yuki said.
...was so that the two of them would get along better. It would appear that it didn't have much of an effect.
"You are really getting on my nerves, already!" Yuki said.
"So, go ahead and try to force me to shut up, you girly-boy-" Kyo said.
Yuki put leeks in his mouth.
"Kyo-kun!" Kuri said.
"That should get him to behave himself for a little bit." Yuki said.
"Hey! The tub is available. Yuki-kun, how about getting in?" Shigure said.
"Uh-huh. I'm going to do without today." Yuki said.
"Oh, you're kidding! You're not going in? How dirty!" Shigure said.
Just once, I'd like to hang him from the roof. Yuki thought.
"Sohma-kun, is something the matter?" Kuri said.
"Y- yeah. I think I'm getting a bit of a cold." Yuki said.
"That's terrible!" Kuri said. "You have a bit of a fever. When you first start coming down with a cold is when it's most critical. Take some medicine, and get to bed early."
"Medicine... medicine..." Shigure said.
"You should stay home from school tomorrow..." Kuri said.
"It's all right. I don't need to go that far." Yuki said.
"But tomorrow we have the endurance run." Kuri said.
"Oh, so they're having that? It sure must be tough on you youngsters in the middle of all this cold." Shigure said.
"E- endurance run, you say!?" Kyo said.
"Yes. Didn't you know?" Kuri said.
"The endurance run... a marathon...something where a lot of people run. In other words... A contest! All right! Tomorrow, I'll clearly show you who's the fastest!" Kyo said.
"Um, but Sohma-kun is coming down with a cold..." Kuri said.
"Eat some food, take a bath, and get some sleep, and you'll recover! Don't you run away!" Kyo said.
"But speaking seriously, now, when our bodies get weakened, we transform, and so you must not overdo it." Shigure said.
"Mm-hmm." Yuki said.
I'm worried. I very much would like for him to take tomorrow off.
Xxx
"Sohma-kun, how are you feeling?" Kuri said.
"It's okay. I think I'll be able to get by. And besides, if I stayed home or anything, he's going to get annoying again." Yuki said. "Come to mention it, I haven't seen Reiko-chan around."
"She said she's skipping. Mana-chan is here." Kuri said.
"The girls will be the first to start. Gather at the starting point at the school gate." Teacher said.
"Well then, I'll be going, okay?" Kuri said.
"Mm-hmm." Yuki said.
"Mana-chan, let's work hard today, and make up for Reiko-chan's part!" Kuri said.
"Sure. Running isn't something I'm good at, but I will try my hardest." Mana said.
"Now then, on your marks... get set..." Teacher said.
"Mana-chan! What's the matter!?" Kuri said.
"Kuri-chan, I can't run any farther." Mana said. "Now, I can only go on walking.
Don't worry over me. I will be surely walking behind you...walking..."
"Mana-chan...!" Kuri said.
"Walk, crawl, I don't care, for now, just start, Mana." Teacher said.
I wonder if Mana-chan is all right. It's just about time the boys were starting. I wonder if Sohma-kun is really okay. What's that? White hair! Someone elderly?
"What's the matter!?" Kuri said.
I- it's someone very young!
"F- forgive me! You hair is so completely white, I thought that someone elderly had fallen down! Please, excuse my misunderstanding!" Kuri said.
"Say, do you know of the house named Sohma?" Hatsuharu said.
Xxx
"I'll win! I'm going to win over Yuki!" Kyo said.
"Shut up." Yuki said.
"Those two... are incredibly fast..." Boy said.
"It's not even... a hundred-meter race..." Boy said.
"In some sense, that's stupid." Boy said.
Xxx
"Sohma? Then...by any chance, are you of the House of Sohma?" Kuri said.
"That's right. Do you know it?" Hatsuharu said.
"Y- yes! Um, pleased to meet you! I am Hikawa..." Kuri said.
"He's coming." Hatsuharu said.
"Uh...?" Kuri said.
"He's coming running." Hatsuharu said.
If he's a Sohma gentleman, then it's probable...that this person must also be of the zodiac!
"Um, what are you...?" Kuri said.
"I got him." Hatsuharu pulled a chord and Kyo tripped and fell flat on his face.
"Are you okay, Kyo-kun!?" Kuri said.
"Huh?" Kyo said.
"Kyo-kun!" Kuri said.
"Hikawa-san?" Yuki said.
"What the hell are you doing, you little punk!? Just at the moment when I had finally pulled away from Yuki...!" Kyo said.
"If I hadn't done that, you wouldn't have stopped for me, right?" Hatsuharu said.
"Haru?" Yuki said.
"This behavior is terribly dangerous. Anyone besides Kyo would not come away with just a scratch, so by no means should you try to imitate this." Hatsuharu said.
"Don't you do it either!" Yuki and Kyo said.
"Hey, are you listening to me!?" Kyo said.
"This time it's Haru, huh? They just keep coming to see us, one after another. Aren't you in school?" Yuki said.
"Yeah. I set out on Sunday with that intention, but before I knew it, I had gotten onto a route I didn't know, and once I realized it, three days had gone by." Hatsuharu said.
"Just be candid and say you got lost." Yuki and Kyo said.
"As always, he's got no sense of direction, huh?" Yuki said.
"That's a pretty grand way of getting lost." Kuri said.
'And in short, he hasn't had a bath in three whole days. That's nasty." Kyo said.
"Um, right now, shouldn't we change locations?" Kuri said.
"Mm-hmm, you're right." Hatsuharu said.
"Oh, he's Sohma Hatsuharu. He's in his third year of middle school, one year behind us.
Haru, this here is Hikawa Kuri-san." Yuki said.
"Oh, is that so? It is a pleasure to meet you." Hatsuharu said.
"Not at all! The pleasure is mine!" Kuri said.
Hatsuharu-san has such good manners, and is more grown-up than you usually see in third-year middle-schoolers.
"So, what did you come here for?" Kyo said.
"To fight." Hatsuharu said. "I was planning to challenge you at New Years', but you skipped the banquet, right? That's why I've come to you. Come on, let's do it."
"J- just a minute! I'm in the middle of another important match right now!" Kyo said.
"I've already spent three days coming to get you." Hatsuharu said.
"That's just because you're the one who got lost, you know!" Kyo said.
It seems the talk has taken another direction...
"Never mind, let's just go!" Hatsuharu said.
"Once we get home, I'll face you as much as you want." Kyo said.
"No way." Hatsuharu said.
"This could turn a little bad." Yuki said.
"Huh?" Kuri said.
"Hey, Kyo, how about going ahead and doing as Haru says?" Yuki said.
"I said no, and I meant it! Now, go on home! Right now I'm busy-" Kyo said.
"Stop your... grumbling and moaning!" Hatsuharu said.
"Too late." Yuki said.
"If you were a man, you'd take on any fight, you little kitty-chan! And now...you can go to hell!" Hatsuharu said.
"Why, you little brat! What have you got against me to bother me like this!?" Kyo said.
"He's gone and done a fine job of calling out Black Haru." Yuki said.
"B- B- B...?" Kuri said.
"Haru is a pretty easy-going guy, but once he snaps, he's uncontrollable. Among our family, we call that "Black Haru." Yuki said.
"A- ah... S- so, you mean to say he's the same type of person as Kagura?" Kuri said.
"No...He's even more ill-tempered than Kagura." Yuki said.
"Don't you just stand here watching, Yuki. Today's the day when you're mine!" Hatsuharu said.
"What are you going to do once you have me?" Yuki said.
"C'mon, get up Kyo!" Hatsuharu said.
"I already am up! Where is it that you went!?" Kyo said.
"Fight...! Let's fight!" Hatsuharu said.
"Hikawa-san, this looks like it may be a while." Yuki said.
"My fight with Yuki comes first!" Kyo said.
"It's okay if you go on ahead." Yuki said.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Hatsuharu said.
"But..." Kuri said.
"Don't you be ridiculous!" Kyo said.
"Kyo, why you...! When did you get to be such a gutless pansy?" Hatsuharu said.
"You know, when you go Black, you get seriously malicious!" Kyo said.
"You smart-ass! If you gripe any more, I'm going to take the young lady too!" Hatsuharu said.
"Huh? What about her?" Kyo said.
"I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that, and on top of it all, I'm even gonna do that!" Hatsuharu said.
What are you talking about, you jerk? You've forgotten that you owe me for when you were a kid, and you'd get lost on the way to the bathroom, so I would take you. When you go Black, you lose any trace of charm, you know. Who was it that drew you out? Okay, it was me...But when you say you'll do this and do that, what do you mean? I don't understand, why would you take the girl away? She has nothing to do with this, right? That's right, she has nothing to do with this, nothing to do with this at all. Girls have nothing to do with a man's fight! Nothing to do with it... Kyo thought.
"For some reason, you disgust me! You dirty brat, I'll take you down! Come at me any way you want!" Kyo said.
"You should have just come at me like that from the start, you coward!" Hatsuharu said.
"Hikawa-san, this really does look like it's going to take a while." Yuki said.
"Keep talking, you!" Kyo said.
"You can go." Yuki said.
"I'm gonna make your back teeth rattle!" Kyo said.
"B- but shouldn't we stop them?" Kuri said.
"Hey, Mana-san!" Boy said. "You could run a little bit!"
"No." Mana said.
"Come on, what's the matter!? Come hit me!" Hatsuharu said.
"Shut up! Don't you realize I've seen through all your tricks!?" Kyo said.
"Don't you sass me!" Hatsuharu said.
"U- um..." Kuri said.
"Leave them alone, Hikawa-san. It's best to let them go at it as much as they want to. And besides, there's no way I'm about to bring myself between them and be showered in their sparks. Not over my dead body." Yuki said.
Still, I had found the Hatsuharu-san who I had just met earlier to be quite a tranquil gentleman. Kuri thought.
"What kind of punch is that!? It's too light to have any effect at all!" Kyo said.
To think that there are people who could change like that once they snap...It sure seems the Sohma family is filled with people who are hard to deal with. Kuri thought.
"Come hit me some more, you jackass!" Hatsuharu said.
"Don't get too carried away! You're slow as a turtle, compared to Yuki!" Kyo said.
"Well then, what's the deal with you not being able to beat Yuki, when he took up martial arts after we did!? You even went through training! How revolting! You're even worse than a turtle! You're a tortoise! An amoeba!" Hatsuharu said.
"I am seriously going to send you to hell!" Kyo said.
"That's nonsense." Yuki said.
"Still, it seems... Kyo-kun is pretty strong." Kuri said.
"Ah, yeah, against Haru, Kyo probably is stronger. In any case, they are definitely fighting fools. Long ago, the two of them both enjoyed studying... the martial arts..." Yuki choked and coughed.
"Sohma-kun? Sohma-kun!? Sohma-kun!" Kuri clutched him.
"Yuki! Is it an attack?" Hatsuharu said.
"His bronchial tubes?" Kuri said.
"You have a terrible fever, don't you? You've got to be more careful when you've caught a cold, you know? For now, just lie here. Go contact the main house right away." Hatsuharu said.
Yuki clung to Hatsuharu.
"Sohma-kun!" Kuri said.
He's having trouble...He's having a lot of trouble. I should have insisted on having him take the day off! Kuri thought.
"You don't want the main house involved, huh? Can we put our fight on hold momentarily, Kyo?" Hatsuharu said.
"Yeah." Kyo said.
"Well then, shall we go to Shigure-sensei's house?" Hatsuharu said.
"Of all the... Does this mean the endurance run is on hold too? What a waste, now that's ruined too." Kyo said.
"We could take him by taxi..." Kuri said.
"That's no good, if Yuki were to transform, it would be a pain." Hatsuharu said.
"I'll go together with him! I'll do anything!" Kuri said.
"I know. You're pretty cute. I can have you work together with me. I'm just saying that as long as I have to hug someone, they may as well be cute." Hatsuharu hugged her and transformed into a cow. "Hold on to the back of my neck, so I don't change back. It'll be easier on Yuki to carry him this way."
"It's here. It's finally here. Now I can say for sure. Royal, straight, flush!" Mana said.
"What, seriously!? How come you get nothing but the good cards!?" Boy said.
"You guys, if you're not going to run, go home." Teacher said.
"So, you came all the way home in that form, then?" Shigure said.
"It's nothing to laugh at!" Kyo said.
"He's sleeping soundly. Looks like he got off with just a slight attack. He still has a fever,
but he'll be all right." Shigure said.
"Thank goodness!" Kuri said.
"Sorry about that, Kuri-Chan. You can still go back to school now." Shigure said.
"No! School is important, but I don't want to go if I have to leave him here sick. I'm sure Mother would say so too. B- besides, colds are dreadful. You must not take them lightly." Kuri said.
"Well then, shall I go to the school and get your things?" Shigure said.
"N- no, you needn't go to the trouble..." Kuri said.
"It's okay, it's okay don't worry about it." Shigure said. "Kyo-kun, put in a call to Ha-san."
"Huh? Why should I have to do that!?" Kyo said.
"Ha-san is on edge lately from being overworked, so watch yourself. Seems the whole family is coming down with influenza." Shigure said.
"I'll call him. Where's the phone again?" Hatsuharu said.
"Don't go walking around naked! It's disgraceful!" Kyo said.
"Well, I'm off. Take care of Yuki-kun, okay?" Shigure said.
"Yes, I appreciate you're doing this." Kuri said.
He's so cheerful...Shigure-san really is filled with consideration. Kuri thought.
High school girls, high school girls, high school girls, openly calling to me...! Shigure thought.
"Mm-hmm, understood. Thanks in advance." Hatsuharu said.
"What did Hatori say?" Kyo said.
"For some reason, he was angry at me. It's a mystery." Hatsuharu said.
"That's what happens when you go missing for three days." Kyo said. "So, what do we do? Looks like that damn Yuki has settled down and all. Should we continue our fight?"
"Ah, no, that's okay." Hatsuharu said. "Kyo, you really are stronger. I'll just have to discipline myself more."
"Hold on, you brat! You can't just go getting people all wound up, and then break it off
when you feel like it!" Kyo said. "You've gone and turned back into "White Haru" before anyone realized it!"
"So you're not Black-san any longer, then?" Kuri said.
"Ah, yeah..." Hatsuharu said.
"It's just... now, you seem like a completely different person." Kuri said. "How's Yuki?"
"He is sleeping." Hatsuharu said. "Don't go attacking him in his sleep, Kyo."
"Would I do that, you moron!?" Kyo said. "What meaning would there be in me
winning using a cheap trick like that!? I will obtain my victory by facing him fair and square! This is repulsive! I'm going back to school!"
"Yuki and Kyo, do they come to blows every day?" Hatsuharu said.
"No. They do argue every day, though." Kuri said.
"Oh? That means they're getting along quite a bit better. Before, their relationship was so clouded." Hatsuharu said.
"Clouded?" Kuri said.
"It sure was. Both of them have changed a little bit. Before, they were more on edge, with this aura that said "don't come near" about them, but it feels like that has died down
It could be because you're here at their sides." Hatsuharu said.
"I- it couldn't be, I'm not doing anything so great!" Kuri said.
"I haven't seen how everything has gone, so I don't have any proof, but for the time being, as long as things are changing in the right direction, that's good enough, isn't it?Especially Yuki...Yuki was my first love, after all. I do like Kyo too, but Yuki is someone special to me. When we were kids, I hated his guts, though." Hatsuharu said.
"And why was that...?" Kuri said.
"Because he's the Rat. It's in the fable, right? How the Rat rode on the Ox's back to the banquet? Because of that, I was unconsciously hostile towards him. What's more...the Ox was a fool and an idiot to let himself be used like that or so all the adults around me would say when I was a kid, and laugh at me. Of course, those adults were probably only doing so half-jokingly, but I felt as though every day, I was myself getting laughed at for being stupid. And because I was laughed at, I became depraved, a child who blamed everything on the Rat, and lost my temper easily. My "Black" personality developed then too. Not even my parents could handle me, so they had me begin learning the martial arts to let me vent my stress. But I wasn't able to vent. I enjoyed the martial arts themselves, but it still remained that I was being laughed at a lot. And then one day...I happened to bump into Yuki. The truth is, up until then, I'd never even exchanged words with him. We didn't ever see each other, except for at New Year's. I just popped off,
and unloaded everything I had saved up inside on him. After that, the frequency of
me losing my temper dropped. Yuki had let me say what had been stored up in my heart most. He had freed me from the yoke that was about my heart. I was astounded. He was completely different from the Yuki that I had imagined he was. It was true. I had labeled Yuki as being the mean Rat. I'm glad I saw Yuki that day. Otherwise, even now, I would be mistaken about him, and hate him. Then I really would be a fool." Hatsuharu said.
"That's a wonderful story." Kuri said.
"I was surprised today, too-seeing Yuki next to you, smiling quietly. He never smiled like that when he was at the main house. That's why I was thinking, maybe you had softened up Yuki's heart somewhat." Hatsuharu said.
"Oh, no! You see, um, I'm not capable of doing anything so great..." Kuri said.
"Well, let's find out." Hatsuharu said whispering something in her ear.
"Huh? Hikawa-san?" Yuki said.
"Are you coming around?" Kuri said.
"That's right! I was... I'm sorry to have put you out..." Yuki said.
"Please, lay down." Kuri said.
"How... did I get back home?" Yuki said.
"Hatsuharu-san was good enough to turn into an ox for you." Kuri said.
"Thanks. That must have been a sight." Yuki said.
"Mm-hmm. While you were asleep, Yuki, I told Hikawa-san everything about why I like you." Hatsuharu said.
"And why would you tell her about that, of all things? What are we to do if Hikawa-san were to take was you seriously?" Yuki said.
"It is a serious story." Hatsuharu said.
"It was a very wonderful story, Yuki...kun." Kuri said.
"That's okay, you don't have to pay any attention to Haru..." Yuki paused, then blushed and transformed.
"Hatsuharu-san, it won't work coming from me after all." Kuri said.
And so, the stormy endurance run ended safely. And then, that evening, everyone came to be stricken with colds.
You see, if you go out playing Old Maid in this cold air, you're bound to catch cold.